Climate geoengineering is the name for the most audacious idea to master nature. Right now, energy companies, scientists, policymakers and even some environmentalists around the world are considering the possibility of attempting to manually override the Earth's thermostat to counter the effects of global warming.

No, this isn't something out of Gene Roddenberry or Stephen King. This is real. In fact, it is so real that the world's most prominent body on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will address its merits in the group's Fifth Assessment Report due out early next year.

Geoengineering covers a range of technologies. Some are apparently quite benign such as painting roofs white so as to reflect solar energy back into space. But, such schemes are also unlikely to have a significant impact on the climate. Those with the greatest current potential also tend to present the greatest risk. The two most often discussed strategies are stratospheric aerosol spraying and ocean iron fertilization.

The former option would entail spraying sulfur or a similarly reflective compound into the stratosphere via planes or balloons to reflect solar radiation back into space. The projected cost of stratospheric spraying is relatively cheap, in the billions to tens of billions of dollars a year. Proponents argue that scientists could distribute enough reflective particles in the air to return temperatures back to pre-industrial levels if we wished.

Ocean iron fertilization takes its inspiration from the knowledge that algae (which absorb carbon) feed on iron. Consequently, dump iron filings in iron-poor parts of the ocean, and soon you have carbon-absorbing algae blooms. Again, the cost is low.

However, both of these options pose substantial known risks to humans and ecosystems. Stratospheric spraying could substantially reduce precipitation in South and Southeast Asia, potentially shutting down seasonal monsoons that more than a billion people rely upon for growing crops, or imperil replenishment of the ozone layer. Ocean iron fertilization could result in the proliferation of algae species that won't support higher order predators, or prove toxic in the marine environment. Moreover, the Earth's ecology is vastly complex, and both of these technologies may also pose significant unknown risks that are impossible to assess before it is too late.

Sensing such dangers, most people have an instinctively negative reaction to climate geoengineering. The reality, however, is that unless we deal seriously with the climate change problem (which we are not) the siren call of geoengineering will grow. And, when we get to the point where burgeoning concentrations of greenhouse gases are causing undeniable catastrophes -- tornados, hurricanes, droughts, coastal flooding, wild fires, mass extinctions -- on a scale orders of magnitude larger than we are experiencing today, the temptation to seriously consider a technological fix will become irresistible to many.

What this means for us today is that we should put the mechanisms in place to deal with the serious governance challenges that geoengineering will present. No existing global institution is capable of deciding whether we as citizens of the planet should collectively assume the risk of a substantial geoengineering project, much less where to set the planet's thermostat. Similarly, no institution is authorized to stop countries from implementing dangerous geoengineering schemes on their own, nor is one capable of refereeing between battling geoengineering programs. In order to avoid climate governance chaos we need to strengthen global decision making institutions, and we need to do so in a way that is fair and democratic.

Environmental and resource pressures have been driving home for over a generation that we must learn to collectively preserve our one small planet. Now, the ability and incentive to manipulate the climate upon which its living forms depend gives a new urgency to that quest.

Andrew Strauss is the associate dean for faculty research and development and a professor at Widener University School of Law in Delaware. William C.G. Burns is the associate director of the Energy Policy & Climate Program at Johns Hopkins University. Their book, Climate Change Geoengineering: Philosophical Perspectives, Legal Issues, and Governance Frameworks, is due out this month.

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